


a grain of sand

by erythea



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: Cute Kids, Fluff, Gen, but with none of the bullshit, kama is a kid, yan qing is surprisingly good with kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:53:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24089203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erythea/pseuds/erythea
Summary: Yan Qing babysits the child Servants and takes them on a trip to the beach.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	a grain of sand

**Author's Note:**

> i have no idea how to write any of these children but i wanted to write something cute, so i hope it's cute

“Alright, alright! Time’s up!”

Yan Qing clapped his hands to call everyone’s attention. Despite what others might think from his tattooed frame and rugged looks, the man was surprisingly good with children. He often met them at eye level, gave them sweets, and called them good — things all children liked. Thus, it was no surprise they liked him enough to tug on his arms and beg him to please, please, _please_ take them to the beach. Asking permission before rayshifting wasn’t his style, but Gordolf and Sion were easy to convince once the child Servants were involved.

Ritsuka trusted Yan Qing to begin with, but they weren’t quite sure if he could handle the children alone. So they made a whole day out of it: Atalanta was in charge of looking for food, Emiya was in charge of cooking them, and since Robin had been kidnapped by Elizabeth to do her bidding, Yan Qing was left to look after the children. Of all the duties, he preferred this. He still had to entertain kids, sure, but they were sweet kids. They didn’t pull on his hair or call him deerlet, so babysitting wasn’t hard to do. Compared to what he was used to, it wasn’t so different.

To keep the girls occupied while Emiya prepared their lunch, Yan Qing came up with a spur of the moment activity for the occasion.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we once again welcome you to the 108th Annual Sand Sculpture Contest!” 

He gestured to his young audience as he spoke into his air microphone and continued, “Sculptors from all around the world have gathered at this very beach to show us the best talent Chaldea has to offer. Please give our contestants a round of applause!”

As Yan Qing cupped his hands to mimic the cheers of a stadium, everyone clapped their hands enthusiastically with the exception of Kama, who didn’t so much clap as she did press her palms together twice.

“Now as you all know, according to my rules, everyone’s a winner." Yan Qing nodded, for this was true. To say otherwise meant that someone was definitely going to cry. "But! Today, one of our contestants will be walking away with a super special prize from yours truly.”

“A prize! A prize!” Nursery Rhyme cheered. She loved prizes, especially if they were the kind she could share with everyone. 

“What’s the prize, gege?” asked Jack. Yan Qing once taught her to call him her older brother on one of their farming expeditions together, and no one’s bothered to correct her since.

“Good question, Jackie,” Yan Qing replied, hoping that his Grail-winning smile would hide his mild lack of preparation. “The answer to that will be revealed at the end of the program!”

“Is it a star?” asked Abigail. It’s an idea Yan Qing stole from Edison while on duty: he liked to give the children stars whenever they behaved or did a good thing. If they had enough stars, they could trade them in for food, toys, or a trip to the beach. It kept them in line without Yan Qing having to do a thing, and he rather liked not doing things. As far as stars were concerned, Abigail was in the lead.

“Is it a sleigh?” asked Jeanne. Having used all her stars to bring her friends to the beach, her star count was back to zero. Logically, being Santa could net her a lot of stars come Christmas, so she’s already begun counting down the days until she could start farming for them.

“Is it a lifetime supply of spam?” asked Jack. She was hungry, and Jeanne’s presence reminded her of what she had last Christmas.

Yan Qing pointed at each of them as he gave his answers: “No, no, I _wish_. Damn, Jackie. Now I kinda want spam.”

“Atalanta, Yan Qing said a swear!”

Nursery Rhyme was always quick to point out any of Yan Qing’s flaws the way busybody children often did. This time, she even raised her hand to call Atalanta’s attention. To Nursery Rhyme, Yan Qing wasn’t a bad person, but swears were definitely banned from Chaldea's children no matter what. Fearing death would arrive in this exact manner, Yan Qing once asked Robin for advice on how to deal with this specific scenario among others. Following the Archer's advice, Yan Qing plopped a piece of candy in her mouth.

“Okay! We’re running out of daylight, so let’s move on to our first contestant. Why doncha show us what you got, Rhyme?”

Rhyme stuck up her chin, her mouth still full, but pranced ahead anyway. Whether or not Yan Qing swore was second to whether or not he’d like her sculpture. He liked books as much as she did, so she was absolutely certain she was his favorite. Whether or not that was true, it made her very happy.

“Ta-da!” She gestured at her sculpture: a grand castle of shells and sand and the stuff of fairytales. It was as tall as she was, with a small flag of Chaldea on top. She puffed her chest up as she stood next to her magnum opus, waiting for praise.

“Pretty!” said Abigail, her eyes sparkling. “I want to live here!”

“Sweet castle, Rhyme. I like how you built a moat around it,” Yan Qing noted as he watched Abigail play with the working drawbridge. “Bet the princess who lives here’s a real looker!”

“No.” Rhyme shook her head. “This is the Jabberwock’s castle.”

“Is that the name of the princess?” Yan Qing tried.

“No,” she said. “It’s a monster.”

“Oh,” said Yan Qing, regretting his disinterest for Lewis Caroll. 

“It’s dead.”

“Oh,” said Abigail, relieved by her housing choices.

“It's dead because it was in that forest all the time!” she huffed as if she had been its real estate agent for the past few months. “If it had a castle, its neck wouldn’t have gone snicker-snack! I gave it a castle so no one has to kill it anymore.”

Yan Qing’s expression softened as she said this, recalling a faint memory from long ago, and he knelt down before her to place a thin sticker in her hand: a golden star.

"You’re really something, kid,” he said. “Not just anybody woulda given a monster a castle like that. It just wanted to be safe and happy, right?”

“Right!” She closed her hand around the sticker and beamed. Yan Qing ruffled her hair, and in her joy, she took Abigail's hands and said, "Abby, the monster of this castle is really nice. We should have tea with it someday!"

Kama clenched her fists.

Pleased with Nursery Rhyme’s work, Yan Qing stood up and wiped the sand off his knees. That was one sand sculpture down.

“Alright, who’s next?” He craned his neck to check on who he might have missed. “Bunyan, you doing okay?”

“Yeah,” a voice squeaked from behind Jeanne and Jack. “Um! I wanna be next, if that’s… okay…”

The tallest of the bunch, Paul Bunyan had been standing quietly behind the group, hesitant to make a sound. She was a shy girl, so Yan Qing did his best to include her. It wouldn't do for a Heroic Spirit to be forgotten. Yan Qing made sure that never happened. His jovial laughter brought a radiant glow to his smile as he motioned her to come closer.

“I thought you’d say that! C’mon, let’s see it!”

Bunyan smiled from ear to ear. “It’s over here.”

When Bunyan pointed at the sand sculpture behind her, everyone was struck by sheer awe and wonder. It was a recreation of a picture-perfect mountain — the kind one sees on postcards and travel magazines. Surrounding the mountain was a network of flowing rivers, and trees fashioned out of coral and seaweed. Forget time, Yan Qing didn’t want to think about the physics of how she captured the strong and solid majesty of it all.

“What the—” Yan Qing nearly landed himself in trouble until Nursery Rhyme shot him a _look_. “—heck, Bunyan! You made this? This is f…reaking awesome!”

“Hee hee, it’s nothing,” said Bunyan, but the pride in her smile was unquestionable.

“Nah, it’s somethin’, alright! Reminds me of the good old days,” Yan Qing said wistfully. “Me and the gang lived on a mountain just like this one.”

“Really?” she asked. “Really really?”

“Really really really really,” he replied. “I still don’t know how Li Kui caught up with a guy like me while running up a mountain like that, but I guess that just tells you more about his character, hahaha!”

But when his laughter died down, Bunyan noticed that Yan Qing looked a little sad. The children had never seen him get sad before. There was a time he told them, upon their prompting, about the one time that he was unhappy, but even then he had a smile on his face. Adults didn’t smile. They were always serious, as if they carried the world on their shoulders.

Sometimes they wondered if he was the same.

“Jack told me you were cool back then,” Bunyan said. “You rode on horses and fought bad guys!”

“What do you mean ‘were’? I’m still cool!”

Yan Qing burst into laughter and ruffled her hair. He couldn’t tell her the whole truth even if he tried, but she wasn’t wrong, either.

Bunyan giggled, and again, Kama clenched her fists.

“This is what they call the spirit of a pioneer, right?” said Jack, who began circling the sculpture to examine every detail. “Spam Lily, look! The glass bottle she put here is so shiny and pretty.”

“That’s not my naaame!” Jeanne yelled as she ran up to Jack, red in the face. “For the last time, it’s Jeanne Alter Santos Lilian… John Alden Sandy Lily...”

“It’s broken,” said Abigail, pulling the broken beer bottle out from the sculpture.

“Hey, don’t touch that,” Yan Qing warned. “Abby, come here.” Though his tone was serious, the hand that took the bottle away from Abigail was gentle as it pried the danger from her grasp. “Whoever left this lying around is gonna be in big trouble. Know what I mean?”

“Will you punch them?” Jack asked innocently. “Will you kick them until they bleed?”

“No! That sounds bad!” On the verge of tears, Abigail pleaded, “Please don’t hurt anybody, Yan Qing! It’s my fault I picked it up…”

Bunyan made a sound and shook her head. “No, Abby, it’s my fault. I should have noticed it before I made the mountain… Ooh…”

“Why are you two crying?” said Jeanne, who was already rubbing at her eyes. “We’re finally at the beach together, so we should be happy…!”

“Hey, hey, hey! Why’s it Unlimited Waterworks up in here suddenly?” Yan Qing, stupefied by this turn of events. He had forgotten that not everyone was impervious to his jokes as Jack was. He took a hand towel and began wiping everyone’s tears, starting from Abigail. “No one’s gonna get hurt, okay? I promise.” 

“Yeah,” Jack nodded. “Gege’s a superhero, so he’ll find a way.”

“It’s okay, Bunyan,” said Nursery Rhyme, patting her friend’s back in consolation. “Even Jack loses her knives in the simulation room sometimes. It happens.”

“Mommy gets upset when we do.” Jack frowned at the memory. “We don’t want Mommy to be sad.”

“I don’t think it’s easy to lose that sort of thing…” mused Abigail. “but Yan Qing picks them up for you now, right? His name is hard to say, but Yan Qing is really nice. Yugo thinks so, too!”

“Yeah!” Jack nodded, cheering up. “He helps us kill a lot of wyverns and carry the teeth back home.”

“And he reads me stories when everyone else is busy!” Nursery Rhyme added.

“We're lucky Yan Qing’s here to protect us,” said Jeanne, sniveling as she wiped the last of her tears away. “Adults are supposed to protect children, after all!”

“Not all adults think that way,” he said quietly as he dried the last of their tears. “but Jeanne’s right. That’s what adults should do. Even if they’re not your mom or dad…”

In the end, he knew a ruffian like him couldn’t stay by their side. There will come a time when he will make them cry, and wiping their tears won’t be enough to console them.

For now, Yan Qing beamed. Everyone was showering him with praise. This was a perk of taking care of good children: they gave you purpose, and they always had something nice to say about you. It filled his heart with a warmth he’d never felt before.

Kama didn’t like that.

“Whatever,” she finally spoke, tossing her hair as she crossed her arms. “I don’t think Yan Qing’s that great. You can talk big, but you’re only reliable when there’s something in it for you. And for what? A sliver of praise?” She huffed. “You’re just a muscle-brained dog who thinks he’s got it all.”

While the others wondered what had gotten into their usually amiable friend for her to talk this way, Jack wondered what silver had to do with anything.

“Hmm?” Yan Qing asked, smiling. “I think I heard Kama say something, but I’m so happy that I couldn’t make out what it was.”

“Kama said she wants you to look at her sand panda,” said Nursery Rhyme.

Kama’s eyes widened, and her face burned as hot as the summer sun.

“Wh—! No!” she protested. “I never said that. In what universe did I say that?”

“Liar. You kept mumbling to yourself about it,” Nursery Rhyme insisted. “ _I hope that Yan Qing likes my sand panda so I can get this over with!_ Things like that.”

“Mm, it’s true.” Bunyan nodded, albeit reluctantly, for Kama was scary. “She would flip between working super hard on it and not wanting to work on it at all. I think she wanted to do her best, but she gets tired easily.”

“I understand,” Jeanne also nodded, but confidently, for she had just finished her self-imposed homework on labor laws. She didn’t understand them at all, but the point was that she had read them. “Working as the god of love is no joke! It’s almost like being Santa, only you work 24/7! Us Santas only need to work once a year, so we don’t need protection from such cruel working conditions, but I think gods need to unionize.”

“Unionize?” asked Abigail. “Is that in the Bible?”

As this went on, Yan Qing observed the flustered Kama, who glared at everything as she gritted her teeth. Of all the children that had been occasionally foisted onto Yan Qing and his list of responsibilities, Kama was the easiest to deal with. To see her uncooperative now was strange.

“Why’re you being so shy now, Kama?” Yan Qing asked as he crouched in front of her. “Ash told me he couldn’t even believe you got that many stars, you know. You wanna prove him right?”

“I don’t care what an avatar of that wretched god thinks,” she spat. “You're just a man who’s satisfied with anything, so there's no point in showing you! Don’t pat me on the head when it doesn’t mean anything!”

Everyone was shocked into silence.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he replied, unshaken. “No one’s ever made anything for me before. There was a time I wanted to buy everything, just to say I had it all. But now I’m happy with anything you kids make.”

He scratched his cheek sheepishly. “I wanted to be fair, but it looks like you didn’t take it that way. I think I kinda learned something just now… So this is what it was like for him. Hahaha! I’m sorry. You can punch me if you wanna.”

Kama forced her laughter all the time. She could tell when Yan Qing did, too. But at this point, when everyone has gotten used to their caretaker and his ways, it didn’t take a lesson in acting for them to know the truth.

“No.”

After a long and hesitant pause, Kama finally showed him the sculpture she’d hidden under a mound of sand. It was not a sculpture of sand, but of glass: three panda cubs lazily lying on the beach.

“My, my!” said Nursery Rhyme. “What adorable bears.”

“They look so real!” said Abigail. “How did you make them into glass so fast?!”

“I’m a god, obviously.” Kama grinned. “I just used my flames to speed things up. I didn’t work too hard on it, so don’t get the wrong idea.”

This time, Yan Qing’s laughter was genuine.

“Well, what do you know? You sure you’re not a god of the arts? It ain’t a sand sculpture, sure, but we _gotta_ take this home!”

“Not so fast.”

Kama held a hand up to stop him.

“Because I let you see it, you have to treat everyone to shaved ice. And…” Kama looked away. “you never wronged me, so there’s no need to apologize.”

At this, the children cheered.

“Hahahaha! Looks like Ash was wrong about ya after all.” said Yan Qing. “This one’s my favorite for sure. Thanks, Kama!”

He placed his hand on her head and, like the others before her, ruffled her hair.

And then, the unexpected happened.

“Oh no,” said Abigail. “Kama, why are you crying?!”

“Kama got jealous for a bit, but Yan Qing used his pretty boy powers against Kama at full force,” Nursery Rhyme said in mock disgust. “He’s the worst.”

“Yan Qing, if Kama doesn’t stop crying, me and Mr. Reindeer are going to give you a lump of coal!” said Jeanne.

“We don’t get it,” said Jack as she kicked the sand. “Did we do something wrong?”

“Nah, you girls are fine,” reassured Yan Qing, slightly panicked as he tried to salvage the situation. “No one used their pretty boy powers.” He gave Nursery Rhyme a look. “Kama just wants to eat something sweet now. Doncha, Kama?”

“Yeah…” Kama sniffed. She would thank him for that later.

“It’s okay, Kama,” said Bunyan. “Yan Qing says he cries a lot, too.”

“Yeah,” Jack chimed in. “Gege cries lots even if he’s strong and handsome, so it’s not a big deal.”

“Does crying have anything to do with being handsome? Is he sad because he’s too handsome?” wondered Nursery Rhyme.

“Yeah, yeah, being handsome’s a pain in the ass,” Yan Qing sighed. Kids say the darnest things, but he just had to get used to it. “Come on, Kama, I’ll carry you to the shack. We’re putting this contest on hold — Paracelsus is making shaved ice for everybody!”

“Yay! Shaved ice!”

“Ahhh! Atalanta, Yan Qing swore!”

Though Kama would never speak of it, and though she continued to cry until her shaved ice was served, as Yan Qing and her friends comforted her, she had genuinely never been happier.

Yan Qing didn't know this, but he didn't need to know to understand. This, too, was the perk of caring for someone.


End file.
